Our Easter brunch family guests had just left and I was setting up the laptop computer when a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck 100 miles away causing our house to rock and roll and prompting me to call our newly acquired Corgi, Tasha, to join me out on the patio, followed by Larry and Corgi, Mac.  We watched as our fish pond noisily sloshed back and forth.  Two wine bottles and a clock had fallen over but were not damaged.   Thousands of aftershocks continue to be reported (including a 4.7 earthquake this morning), and it is estimated that earthquake-related damage in nearby Imperial County will eventually be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

One week later we returned to Anza-Borrego Desert for five nights of camping in a region that lies across one of the most active seismic systems in North America, according to Geology of Anza-Borrego: Edge of Creation, by Paul Remeika and Lowell Lindsay, 1992, Sunbelt Publications.  After passing over Earthquake Valley fault at Scissors Crossing, we stopped just outside Tamarisk Grove Campground (the second largest campground in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and now only open on weekends due to California’s budget crisis) for a look at the profuse yellow flowers of the Brittlebush.

According to Diana Lindsay in her book Anza-Borrego A to Z: People, Places, and Things, 2001, Sunbelt Publications,  Tamarisk Grove is named for a stand of Athel tamarisk trees (Tamarix aphylla) planted as a shade tree and windbreak.  The campground was originally a San Diego County prison camp, established in 1929 to relieve crowding in the county jail.  Nearby are the Cactus Loop and Yaqui Well trails.

After a brief stop to take photos, we continued on to our Borrego Palm Canyon campsite.  Later in the week, our friends (and veterinarian) Bob and Theresa arrived with their 30′ Airstream Classic with slide-out.  Several times Bob spotted Bighorn Sheep and lambs on the ridge overlooking the campground through his telescope.

A volunteer in the Visitors’ Center reported that the peak in the wildflower season here was two weeks ago, but we were pleased to see many plants still blooming, such as the Indigo Bush (Psorothamnus fremontii), named after John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813 - July 13, 1890), the first presidential candidate of a major party to run on a platform opposing slavery in 1856.

While walking our Corgis along the campground road, we spotted Purple heather (Krameria erecta), seen below.

While the Iceland volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, was spewing out ash and disrupting flights across Europe, our Volcano II Collapsible Stove was deep-frying Chinese spring rolls.

This stove was purchased at a promotional demonstration at Costco earlier this year and this is the first time we brought it along while camping.

This portable, efficient and versatile stove can use propane gas, charcoal and wood.  It collapses and travels in the case provided.

Although it was not clear in the Owner’s Manual, we eventually found that the propane burner gas flames can be optimized by adjusting the air vent found on the underside of the propane burner (see below).

Our wok ring was added to support the Dutch oven.

The spring rolls were stuffed with pork, shrimp and cabbage.  Once the oil was at 350^o, the spring rolls were deep-fried.

The stove worked wonderfully and produced delicious Chinese spring rolls seen on our campsite picnic table decorated with Peruvian Lily (Alstroemeria) flowers from home (a flowering Creosote bush, Larrea tridentata, is seen in the background).

After dinner we enjoyed balmy desert breezes and watched the stars.  During the heat of the day, we turned on the air conditioner and read and napped…

And listened to music and contemplated life through a dog’s eyes.  See the touching PBS film, Through a Dog’s Eyes.

We are learning to take our time and smell the flowers while time is still on our side.

After a turbulent and stormy winter, we returned to the desert to see the beginning of the spring wildflower season in Borrego Springs, California.  Snow could still be seen on a distant mountaintop as flowers bloomed after a series of desert rains.

The tortoise seen above is one of many free standing, steel welded art structures created by artist/welder Ricardo Breceda for Dennis Avery, land owner of Galleta Meadows Estates in Borrego Springs.

This ‘Sky Art’ depicts vertebrates of the past, which inhabited the Anza-Borrego region during the Pliocene-Pleistocene and Miocene eras.

This Galleta Meadows Estate plaque points out the historic nature of this site in the area of the expeditionary territory through which the first overland route to San Francisco Bay was established by Juan Bautista de Anza with the help of Cochimí Indian guide, Sebastián Tarabal, on March 14, 1774.

An Indian chief, friar and farm workers are also represented in Breceda’s art structures.

A wild pig and suckling piglets are seen standing and almost obscured by the non-native and invasive Sahara mustard (Brassica tournefortii).

The Saharan Mustard is now destroying or inhibiting wildflowers in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.  Although plants in general are protected in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Anza-Borrego Foundation trains volunteers in the removal of the Saharan Mustard.  We saw volunteers removing these plants from along Henderson Canyon Road and Borrego Palm Canyon areas.  Without their efforts, the vast carpet of spring wildflowers typically seen in Henderson Canyon may disappear.

The Saharan Mustard is also invading Galleta Meadows and obscuring the art structures such as the Big Horn Sheep.

Rams clash as the battle of native and non-native plants looms.

Larry was caught up in the action… and by this raptor.

“I’ve Got a Crush on You” (… Tasha).

Wildflowers are beginning to make their appearance in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and this year promises to be a great one because of the heavier then usual rainfall.  With a little luck, warmth and sun, the wildflower displays should be spectacular.  Although we did have one day of full sun last week in the desert, most days were partly sunny and cool breezes prevailed.

Our annual return for this event was even more special for us this time because we brought along a new member of the family, Tasha (short for Rosewood Montage), a Pembroke Welsh Corgi.  We also brought along a new element for our setup, a dog pen (click on the above image for larger view).  Advantages of using a dog pen are noted below.

Tasha’s happy now, but when we returned home from our previous outing our local Corgi breeder, Liisa, told us that Tasha had just lost her first litter (via emergency C-section) and was depressed.  Liisa had to be out of town for a few days and asked us if we could house her, and if it worked out, we would also have an option to buy her, which we did upon Liisa’s return.  Tasha now brightens our days as we cope with the pending loss of our 15 year old Pug, Pau Hoa, who was diagnosed with a malignant mast cell tumor  (She can be seen in the upper right corner of the above photo).

We all had a happy time walking in and around the wildflower displays in Palm Canyon Campground.

On Friday we loaded the Corgis into their carriers strapped to the back folded down seat of our F-250 truck (see Traveling and Pet Safety), positioned the Pug on a floor cushion under Larry’s legs and took off to visit the Farmers’ Market at the Borrego Springs Christmas Circle and enjoyed delicious tacos from Jilberto’s Taco Shop.  We then drove north on Borrego Springs Road exploring various parcels of the Galleta Meadows Estate displaying free-standing welded iron sculptures created by Ricardo Breceda.

One such sculpture is a depiction of Father Hermenegildo Tomás Garcés (April 13,1738 - July 19, 1781) accompanied by his dog holding a bone.

In 1768 Spanish Franciscan Garcés was assigned to Mission San Xavier del Bac near present day Tucson, Arizona.

He conducted extensive explorations of the Southwest and assisted Juan Bautista de Anza in establishing an overland connection with New Spain through the region of the lower Colorado River.

A sprinkling of wildflowers can be seen in the foreground, while snow is seen on the distant mountains in the background.

After visiting and photographing other sculptures (which will appear in my next article), we returned to camp.  Below is a photo of our dog pen.  We have discovered the benefits of dog pens in that they can provide a safe, secure, and shady place for our dogs and help us manage them during meal time.  In this photo Tasha is on a runner and has chosen to enter the pen to relax.  The pen is held in place with bungee cords attached to the table.

Bob and his wife, Theresa, joined us for a Chinese fire pot dinner.  Bob is our veterinarian and has a 30′ Classic Airstream.  Charcoal burns in the chimney of the fire pot/hot pot heating the soup and cooking the ingredients that guests place into the soup with a small wire basket.  Noodles can be added to the soup as a last course.

Tom Yum, a Thai kaffir lime chicken broth, was used as the soup and the following ingredients were provided: raw shrimp, sliced boneless skinless chicken thighs, cooked pork meat balls, bok choy, chopped cilantro, shredded Nori seaweed, and roasted peanuts.  Guests chose from a variety of condiment sauces.

A happy time was had by all…

But there’s no place like home.

It is now the dead of winter.  One winter storm follows another, even here in the desert.  Heavier desert rain this season is a good harbinger for a prolific, early wildflower season.  Just a few weeks ago we saw lush, green growth and the bright red flowers of the Ocotillo in Hellhole Canyon.

There is already a hummingbird nest with two eggs in our California Bay Tree just outside our den window.  We are in the middle of the third rain and windstorm this week and rain is expected through Saturday.

Each morning we peer outside our window to see if the nest survived the storms and each day we are amazed that the brave and dedicated mother is still there, hunkered down over her eggs.

During my last visit to Marshal South’s home, Yaquitepec, on Ghost Mountain, I thought about the bravery of Marshal South and his wife, Tanya, in choosing this desolate site for their experiment in desert primitive living and in raising a family here.

I contemplated about their experiences as recorded by Marshal South in his over 102 articles and poems written for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948.*

At one point the South’s windup kitchen clock failed and I was mesmerized by Marshal’s story of the making of his sundial and his reflections on time, as written in his Desert Diary 10 — October at Yaquitepec:

“So again, in peace, with neither tick nor tock time marches on at Yaquitepec…”  (Allow time to slow as you savor reading this.)

“and the unhurried, silent shadow moves round and round on the chisel-marked granite block that stands on the terrace.”

“… It wasn’t originally intended to be a sundial.  In the beginning it was part of a crude homemade grain mill.  But another mill superseded it and in the course of time the upper millstone of the discarded apparatus was broken.  Then one day the old clock folded its hands at 4:33 and we were without the time.  Which didn’t matter much, for ‘time’ is an illusion anyway.  But there is a sort of habit to the counting of it.  So I resurrected the nether millstone with its central iron pin — which was a long iron bolt cemented into a hole in the stone — and set forth to make a sundial.”

“… It was winter when I made the sundial and I still have chilly recollections of ’shooting’ the North Star through the old gun barrel, lashed to a post…”  “There are teeth-chattering memories too of leveling and wedging and sighting under the chill starlight as I arranged the granite block on a big boulder pedestal in the exact position necessary…”

“… Our sundial works.  Sometimes it proves, when checked against the haughty mechanism of expensive visiting watches, to be fifteen minutes or so out.  But who would worry about a little thing like 15 minutes’ error?  Certainly not here on Ghost Mountain, where there are no ‘limiteds’ to catch and where the golden sheen of the sun wraps the desert distances in a robe of glow…”

“… and dim mystery that is timeless.”

“What is Time, anyway?”*

Great thinkers have contemplated about time over the ages.  (See video of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity illustrated here.)

This is food for thought and, with a little champagne (and appropriate music), I’ll muse on and contemplate the passages of time and other mysteries of life and the universe.

*(All 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.)

Bert and I have each been here before, but never at night.  So we packed our gear and took a late afternoon hike on New Year’s Day up Ghost Mountain in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to experience and photograph Yaquitepec and the night sky.

Yaquitepec is the name Marshal South (poet, author and artist) gave to his adobe house that he built atop Ghost Mountain, where he and his family lived from 1930 to 1947 in an experiment in primitive living.  Some consider Marshal and his wife, Tanya, as the original hippie family.  It was the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s, when people were without money, jobs and houses and went back to the land to survive, some, including Marshal and Tanya, by homesteading.

Years earlier they enjoyed camping trips to this area and loved the peaceful beauty of this desert wilderness, which enabled them to be creative in their writings after establishing a home here.  Marshal wrote articles for Desert Magazine and monthly drove his 1929 Model A Ford 14 miles to the town of Julian to pick up mail and supplies.  Some in Julian considered him an outcast because of his lifestyle.  Even though he painted a frieze for the Julian library, he was buried in the Julian Cemetery in an unmarked grave in 1948 (it is now marked with a headstone placed by his son Rider in 2005).

Along the way, Bert photographed this Agave plant, called Mescal by Marshal, who used it as a food and fuel source, among other things.

We started photographing the deteriorating ruins under increasingly cloudy skies.

After four prior hikes up here, I finally found and photographed the Souths’ kiln where they fired their pottery.

It is located about 500 feet east of the house and was built from the surrounding granite rocks.

Although it was mostly cloudy, the night sky had pockets of clearing, revealing stars.  Bert lit up the opposite side of this structure with a strobe light and took the image seen in his article, “At Yaquitepec, Atop Ghost Mountain in Anza Borrego, January of 1940 Was a Very Good Year“.  Afterward, he reviewed his photos (below).  Tall agave stalks are seen against the night sky lit up by El Centro, fifty miles away and the largest U.S. city to lie entirely below sea level.

Bert’s headlamp lit up the yard in front of Yaquitepec.

Earlier during the magnificent sunset, I reflected on the ongoing return of Yaquitepec to the earth and, like Marshal, I celebrated the life, beauty and spirit of this special place.

Marshal wrote in his first article for Desert Magazine, “Desert Diary 1 - January at Yaquitepec”, “And New Year is somehow a joyous finale of the glad season.  A wind-up and a beginning.  And it doesn’t matter much whether the wind is yelling down from the glittering, white-capped summits of the Laguna range and chasing snowflakes like clouds of ghostly moths across the bleak granite rocks of our mountain crest or whether the desert sun spreads a summer-like sparkle over all the stretching leagues of wilderness.  New Year’s day is a happy day just the same.”

And, all in all, for Bert and I, New Year’s Day at Yaquitepec was a happy day and a great way to start the new year.

(All 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.)

Also see Diana Lindsay’s website, MarshalSouth.com, for additional information, articles, images and links.

And see the video trailer of John McDonald’s 76-minute documentary, The Ghost Mountain Experiment.

We celebrated New Year’s in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park under the light of the blue moon.  A blue moon is the “extra” full moon in years that have thirteen full moons and occurs every two to three years.  In early English usage, some interpret this “blue moon” as relating to absurdities and impossibilities.

For us, it was a time to relax and enjoy the ambiance of this peaceful and beautiful desert setting.

Larry brought along a juniper wreath made from the Hollywood junipers from our home, which looked quite festive as it held a candle lantern on our picnic table (seen above).  He also brought two delicious homemade artisan sourdough bread rounds, made using the “No Knead Bread Baking Method” (seen below).

I joined Charon and Alex, Rich, and Bert on a hike up Hellhole Canyon.

Hellhole Canyon hike is a popular introductory backpack trip for many youth groups.  It is located south and west of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Visitor Center that climbs up toward Culp Valley.  According to Diana Lindsay in her book, Anza-Borrego A to Z: People, Places, and Things, 2001, Sunbelt Publications, this canyon was named by William Johnston “Wid” Helm, who used the canyon to move his cattle on and off the desert for winter grazing.  He reportedly said that this canyon was “one hell of a hole to get cattle out of”.

A sign at the beginning of the trail alerted us that mountain lions have been sighted in the area.

Bands of ancient metamorphosed sea beds can be seen on the north canyon wall.

Indeed, we found a marine shell here (as seen below, held by Rich).

Also along this canyon we saw new growth (due to recent rains) of lush, green ovate leaves and bright red flowers of the Ocotillo.  This provided an opportunity for Bert to use his photographic skills and capture a stunning image of the blossoms.

Bert wrote in his recent post, “Hellhole Canyon — Or What’s In A Name?“, “To dramatize the flowers I needed two strobes, which I always carry. I then set the  camera to manual mode, enabling me to overpower the light from the sun. To do that I set the shutter speed to 250th of a second and the aperture to f-22 or less.  Look through the view finder of your camera and you’ll see the dial (at least on the Nikon D300) shows an under exposure of about three stops. Without the strobes your picture would be mighty black, but the strobes are set correctly, and they illuminate the subject. However, you’ll need an additional set of hands to hold one of the strobes.”

I gladly became the additional set of hands, while picking up photography tips from an expert!

My next article will cover what Bert and I experienced and photographed during an evening hike up Ghost Mountain.

Meanwhile, I’ll relax to the music of Blue Moon, accompanied by ukulele.

After picking up Medjool Dates and heirloom tomatoes at the Borrego Springs Christmas Circle farmers’ market, we traveled north on Borrego Springs Road to Galleta Meadows.  There have been reports that Gomphotherium have been spotted there, so we brought along The Anza-Borrego Desert Region: A Guide to the State Park and Adjacent Areas of the Western Colorado Desert, by Lowell & Diana Lindsay, 5th Edition, 2006, Wilderness Press.  This guide points out that Galleta Meadows is named for the coarse and stiff Galleta grass (Pleuraphis rigida), that grows in clumps, 2 to 4 feet high, making a good forage plant for browsing animals.

Indeed, as we approached Galleta Meadows, Gomphotheriums appeared to be grazing.

We parked the truck a safe distance away and consulted our guide.

Diana Lindsay, in her book (based on her Master’s thesis, edited by Richard Pourade), Our Historic Desert: The Story of the Anza-Borrego Desert, 1973, A Copley Book, writes that millions of years ago, this area was covered with seawater, extending from the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez).  Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (the largest contiguous state park in the United States outside of Alaska) is located in Southern California’s Colorado Desert, a part of the Sonoran Desert.  While crossing the Colorado Desert in 1775, Father Pedro Font recorded seeing signs of former maritime life here, including many piles of oyster shells (see this Fonts Point video).  Many land fossils found in this park date from about two to three million years ago, and include the remains of mastodons, ground sloths, camels, horses, wolves and musk oxen. This is illustrated in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Visitors’ Center.

It is also illustrated by life-size steel, free-standing art structures, such as the Gomphotheriums above, created by artist, welder, sculptor Ricardo Breceda and commissioned by Galleta Meadows Estate owner, Dennis Avery, for his property and open to the public.  The area draws many visitors, especially during the spring desert wildflower season.

These sculptures, such as the Giant sloth below, represent vertebrates of the past that inhabited the Anza-Borrego region during the Pliocene, Pleistocene and Miocene eras.

Along with mother and baby ground sloth…

And mother and baby camel (Camelops)…

And a kneeling camel with a Christmas ribbon on its tail and, perhaps, keeping a vigilant watch for storm clouds, Santa Claus, or the Polar Express…

See desertusa.com’s video of these sculptures at the Galleta Meadows Estate.

Borrego Springs, California, is located in Borrego Valley, in an area once named San Gregorio by Juan Bautista de Anza, who led an expedition through here from Tubac, Arizona, in 1774, to find an overland route to bring supplies and reinforcements to the newly established Spanish presidios and missions in California.  Borrego Springs is a small community that prides itself in not having traffic lights. Instead, it has a park-like hub called the Christmas Circle, possibly named because Salvador Ygnacio Linares was born on Christmas Eve in nearby Coyote Canyon on Anza’s second expedition through here in 1775, according to Diana Lindsay in her book, Anza-Borrego A to Z: People, Places, and Things, 2001, Sunbelt Publications.

(Seen in the background of the above photo is Fonts Point, named after Pedro Font, a Spanish priest and diarist on the second Anza expedition, according to Diana Lindsay.  This bluff offers a spectacular view of the Borrego Badlands.)

Within the Christmas Circle is a pleasant, grassy community park that presents the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce Farmers’ Market every Friday, 7 a.m. to 12 p.m., November to June.

Farmers’ markets, sometimes called greenmarkets, provide locally grown produce harvested at its peak flavor and nutritional content and, since this produce does not travel far, farmers’ markets help conserve fossil fuels.  The farmers’ market experience has been likened to outdoor markets traditionally held in villages and town squares throughout the world and provides a less rushed opportunity to chat with vendors and shoppers, while one samples local foods and learns about local culture.

California is the largest producer of food for the country.  How food makes its way to the dinner plate is the subject of an excellent KPBS San Diego Envision 30 minute documentary, “Food”, seen here.

This KPBS program (along with this one) points out that San Diego produces 95,000 tons of oranges each year, and most of them are shipped to foreign countries willing to pay premium rates for some of the tastiest oranges in the world.  Ironically, most of the oranges San Diegans buy come from Australia, South Africa and Peru because we like our oranges to be seedless, pretty and easy to peel.  Larry and I now prefer to buy our oranges at farmers’ markets because they are sweeter and tastier.

We are lucky in San Diego to have 42 farmers’ markets.  Find your local farmers’ market here.

Seen on our holiday dinner table are sweet Medjool dates, shards of Gouda cheese, Garlic and Fine Herbs Boursin Gournay cheese on crackers, sun-dried tomato-cilantro hummus, and strips of Larry’s homemade and very delicious sourdough bread, made following the “No Knead Bread Baking Method“.

And after dinner, visions of sugar-plums danced in our heads.

We ventured in between winter storms to another fun location in the Anza-Borrego Desert, this time to Borrego Springs.  After three years of going up and over our local mountains, both the hard way with many switchbacks, and the magical way using the flux capacitor, we have found that it is more pleasant and easier to go around them (and circumvent Julian) by traveling north on California State Route 79 and taking County Highway S2 down to Scissors Crossing and then 78 and Yaqui Pass to Borrego Springs.  Going this way we avoided potential patches of black ice and snow seen in the Volcan Mountains from San Felipe Valley along S2.

Our mountains usually hold back rain clouds from the desert…

Resulting in mostly sunny days that we enjoyed by hiking and visiting the local farmers’ market and Gomphotherium and other free-standing art structures (such as the tall cactus below) created by artist/welder, Ricardo Breceda, at Galleta Meadows. (More about this in subsequent parts of this article.)

When we drove into Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, we saw another Airstream and someone cheerfully waving to us.  It was Mark and his wife, Mary, who had arrived earlier and were just finishing setting up camp directly across the road from our reserved site.

The following day I joined Mark and Mary on a hike up Palm Canyon (shown above) as Larry and the dogs relaxed at the campsite.  (Dogs are not permitted on the trails.)

Mark and Mary have a 2010 Classic Limited FB (with two solar panels) pulled by a 2008 GMC HD bright red diesel truck with a 52 gallon Titan fuel tank.

They are from Cape Cod and have spent the past two months on the road and have put over 6000 miles on their new trailer.

On the trail they marveled at the size of the palm trees and large boulders that had been washed down the canyon during the 100-year flash flood of 2004.

After hiking one and one half miles up the canyon, we reached a lush oasis of California fan palms supplied by a trickling stream.

(Above photo credit: Mary and Mark)

Over the next few days we enjoyed lively conversation and shared good food as we celebrated this festive season.

On the holiday dinner table below are Larry’s deep-fried potato pierogies, homemade banana-walnut bread, and sun-dried tomato-cilantro hummus.  Mary provided a couscous dish and sliced baguette, Brie cheese, exceptionally sweet strawberries and Medjool dates from the local farmers’ market.

Holiday cheers! Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas!

(Above photo credit: Mary and Mark)

We camped in a desert oasis that is supplied with water at various times by rainwater draining from the Sawtooth Mountains via the Potrero Wash.  While hiking this wash, I saw many wild animal tracks in the sand, including those of the coyote.

The coyote (click here to see photo), Canis latrans, the “barking dog”, is a member of the Canidae (dog) family, has an average weight range of 15-46 pounds, and is found throughout North and Central America.  The name “coyote” is a loanword from American Spanish and is derived from the Nahuatl word cóyotl, meaning “prairie wolf”.  The coyote, known as “the song dog” by Native American Indians (according to Project Wildlife in California), often appears in Native American Indian tradition and folklore and is often portrayed as the trickster (and survivor) in these Native American Trickster Tales.

The coyote is a very adaptable, wide-ranging predator with an excellent sense of smell, vision and hearing, and hunts alone, in pairs, or in packs.  Each night at sunset, we heard the first calls of the coyotes, high-pitched sounds variously described as howls, yips, yelps and barks, most often heard at dusk and at night.

We closed the trailer windows against the approaching chilly night air, fed the dogs and got them inside before they could become dinner for the coyotes.  Coyotes have been known to attack pets and livestock.  We also secured trash and food containers with lids and weights (rocks).

The coyotes usually waited well into the night, when our trailer was silent, before exploring our campsite.  We could tell that they had visited.  Sometimes we could hear their sounds right next to the trailer.  By morning, the dog’s water bowl was empty and marked with coyote urine.  Nearby was a fresh pile of coyote scat, consisting mostly of mesquite beans, which are plentiful at this oasis.

Coyotes are opportunistic and eat what is available, including the Back-tailed Jack Rabbit…

and Gambel’s Quail (named after William Gambel, an American naturalist, who died of typhoid while crossing the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1849).  They inhabit and roost in brushy and thorny vegetation of southwestern deserts.  Listen to Gambel’s Quail here.

The coyote’s adaptability has helped it to survive the encroachment of “civilization” and has led to its success as a native North American species.  Coyotes are now thriving, even in suburban settings and some urban ones, and causing alarm and unease, especially after the recent fatal coyote attack on singer-songwriter, Taylor Mitchell.  Coyotes are causing flight delays at some airports.  Two recent incidents of coyotes biting people at Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California, prompted the authorization to kill coyotes, resulting in the death of eight coyotes and a public outcry.

Environmentalists believe that coyotes are necessary to maintain the balance of nature (for example, coyotes help control rodents and feral cats).  The coyote is a persecuted predator, according to Project Coyote, founded in 2008 “to create a shift in attitudes toward coyotes and other native carnivores by replacing ignorance and fear with understanding and appreciation”.

Project Wildlife says that humans need to learn to coexist with coyotes, and offers these tips.  Griffith Park is now taking a more positive approach by posting ‘Do Not Feed The Wildlife’ signs.  Additional information on the coyote and protecting yourself and your pets is found in these Frequently Asked Questions, presented by DesertUSA.com and in this video.

Coyote sounds enhance our desert experience and I always look forward to hearing them, just as I enjoy listening to Peter and the Wolf at this time of year.